Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 135784 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135784 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Right now, I just feel alone.
It eventually grows quiet in the room, the sounds of arguing ending. I wait for Bethiah to storm in and drag me out, my entire body tense, my heart pounding.
There's a knock at the door. "Can I come in?"
It's Jerrok. For some reason, I find that surprising. Is he handing me over to his cousin, then? "Go away."
He ignores that, testing the handle on the door before I hear the beep of an override. I clench my jaw, glaring, as he steps into the lavatory with the keycard in his hand. He sets it down on the nearest counter, and the blanket is gone from his shoulders. He's wearing his trousers and nothing else, like he was when he slept. "Bethiah's gone. I'm sure she'll show up at my station in a few days just to be a pest, but for now, she's off to go drinking again."
"Great." I hug my legs closer to my chest, wishing he would leave.
To my surprise, he moves into the small lavatory and lowers himself onto the floor, sitting next to me with a creak of parts and a crackle of joints that sound painful. He doesn't complain, though, just rests his back against the wall next to me and watches me with that weird, intense way of his.
"She knows it's you," Jerrok says, and his voice is more gentle than I've ever heard it.
I stiffen, terror flaring through me. "So she's coming back to get me?"
"No. You're safe," he says. "I wouldn't let her, even if she wanted to. She didn't show up just to visit. This was her way of warning you. My cousin always has a plan, even if she goes about it in the most irritating way possible." He draws up one leg, resting his elbow on it. "She's going to sit on your bounty."
"Sit on it? What's that mean?"
He glances over at me. "When someone posts a bounty through the guild, it can be claimed by a hunter. It's assigned to them at that point, so no one else will work on a bounty and steal it out from under someone else. Bounty hunters have a method of stalling out particular bounties that they don't think are right, or that target their friends. They claim it in the guild system, then sit on it until it times out and the original request has to be resubmitted or just closed entirely. Bethiah's sitting on several bounties just so no one else can touch them." He nudges me with his shoulder. "She's got one on me, too."
I look over at him, some of my anxiety fading at this confession. "She does?"
Jerrok nods. "I was supposed to pay the military back for these parts they so-generously loaned me." His mouth twists into a wry smile. "I didn't think they deserved the credits, so I never paid back a single chit. They put a bounty on my head, and my cousin's been sitting on it for six years now."
"But it's different. You're cousins. She has no reason to protect me."
To my surprise, his cheeks darken in a flush. "I told her you're with me. If she thinks we're romantic, she won't bother. She wants me to find a mate, I guess. Says I'm too solitary." He averts his gaze. "If she shows up again, I don't want you to worry about it. My cousin's annoying and talkative and thinks she's smarter than everyone in the room, but she's got an honorable streak. She won't sell you out."
He told her we're romantic? Me and Jerrok? "That must have been painful for you to lie about—being romantic with me."
He flushes again, looking like a young boy instead of a battle-scarred survivor. Jerrok clears his throat and looks everywhere but at me. "It's just a lie. Doesn't mean a keffing thing. I'd tell her I was keffing a ssithri if it'd make her shut up."
I'm not sure how to take that. His words are insulting, but he's blushing and awkward. So strange. "When do we leave this place?" I ask softly. "I want to get back…to Sleipnir." To go home, I almost say, but I don't have a home.
"Storm should clear out in a few hours," Jerrok says. "I checked with the docks and we should be clear to go by morning. Try and get some sleep."
Right. Like I'm going to be able to sleep at all, knowing that there's a bounty on my head. "I don't think I'm tired anymore. I'm just going to sit here for a while."
"I'll stay with you." He shifts his weight, and everything creaks.
I wonder how hard it is for him to stay down here with me. It can't be comfortable. "If I get up, will you get up?"
"No, I love sitting on a filthy floor in a lavatory in the middle of the night for no reason. It's my favorite thing to do." The sarcasm drips from every word. "Maybe if I'm lucky, I'm sitting in an old piss stain."